


another kind of memory

by writeyourownstory



Series: 1917 Domestic AU [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Scars, Tom is so whipped for Will, Tom's POV, Will's long fingers, lil bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24084061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeyourownstory/pseuds/writeyourownstory
Summary: “Scars are just another kind of memory.” ― M.L. Stedman,The Light Between Oceans(Or, the boys spend a morning in bed together, sharing scars and intimate conversations.)
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: 1917 Domestic AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703515
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	another kind of memory

**Author's Note:**

> Just a intimate little look into Tom and Will's relationship. I wrote this when I was supposed to be studying for finals, btw (what else would I be doing, eh?) and now that they are finally over (THANK THE LORD) I decided to post this in celebration! I just needed our soft boys in this time of stress. It's a bit short, but gah I just wanted to write this!
> 
> Chronologically, this one takes place a few months into their relationship (2-3 months? Idk), while i'd walk a thousand miles was 2 years into their relationship. I really have no set timeline for my posts, so they'll likely be all over the place. I'll provide chronology, though, don't worry!
> 
> Also, I want to thank everyone who commented on the last installment! I'm so glad ya'll enjoyed it! Your comments made me feel so good while things at work and in my online classes only got worse. I am seriously starting to hate being an essential worker.
> 
> On that note, I hope all of you out there are ok and being safe and staying sane in these trying times. 
> 
> OK here's some soft boys being soft ENJOY!

They lie in bed together one morning, early enough that the sun was barely streaming through the curtains, casting a hazy pink glow over the sheets. There was no space between them, pulled flush against one another as wondering hands moved slowly against skin. They’d woken up not long ago—Tom having stayed the night at Will’s flat again—staring and exploring over each other’s nude bodies lazily, neither willing to break the silence.

Tom has never felt so content, so comfortable in another person’s presence before. Will was enveloping him, taking the remaining space he had left in him to give. It was intoxicating, new, _brilliant_. He’s dated before, but nothing compared to this man. It was surprising how little time it’s taken for Tom to become so invested. Just a few months and he’s already falling hard.

Will’s looking at him now, slightly tired but with a dopey look on his face and a small smile that Tom has quickly learn is reserved just for him. His blue eyes are dark in the early morning light, but no less piercing, hooded sleepily. He trails his long fingers down Tom’s arms, and Tom’s do the same to Will’s. He feels the hairs on the man’s arm stand on end at the touch.

Usually Will’s up before now, gone for a run in the early hours of the morning. But instead he’s here, snuggled in bed with Tom, like he doesn’t want to leave. Tom is more than happy with that. He trails a finger down the man’s toned chest, causing shivers in his wake.

Will let’s out a sudden yawn, leaning down to nuzzle his face into the crook of Tom’s neck. Someone is definitely being lazy today. Tom smiles and pulls him close, throwing an arm over his back. His other hand goes to Will’s head, fingers running through his short, silky hair. Will's talked about growing it out lately and Tom hopes he does—what he wouldn’t give for something to tug on or run his hands through. He scratches the older man’s scalp, making Will sigh and lean more into his touch.

Tom’s fingers catch on a familiar patch of raised skin near Will’s hairline and his brow furrows slightly. He feels around the area, noting how jagged it is—maybe an inch or two long—going over the right side of his scalp. It's quite noticeable. Not ugly, but prominent. Tom’s curious about it, he just hasn’t pushed that boundary yet. Their relationship is still new and he's been too timid to bring it up properly. In the warmth of their early morning embrace, though, Tom feels his curiosity win out and he finds himself breaking the silence.

“Hey, Sco, where did you get this?” He asks casually, his fingers soothing over the raised, pale skin.

“Hmm?” Will hums sleepily, face still pressed against Tom’s neck. Tom jars him a little, fingers still splayed on his head feeling the mark. Will pulls back with a disgruntled noise. “What?” He grunts.

“This scar.” In the dim light he can see the puckered flesh just peeking out of Will’s hair. He feels along it again. “I’ve never asked, but where’d you get it from?”

Will reaches up, his fingers touching Tom’s as he feels the scar too. He huffs.

“Fell when I was a kid, s’all. Hit my head.”

“I’d say. Crack your head open, did ya?”

Will pulls away from Tom’s fingers at his joking comment, something shuttering in his expression. He feels the man go tense and Tom’s stomach drops. He gets the impression he’s overstepped.

“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business,” Tom backtracks. He doesn’t want to make the other man angry just because his curiosity got the better of him.

After a moment, Will seems to relax again, his eyes softening when they look at Tom.

“It’s alright. Just not something I like talking about,” he confesses quietly.

Tom nods. “I get it. You don’t have to tell me.”

Will smiles his small smile. He reaches for Tom’s hand, squeezing it. “Maybe someday. Not now.”

“Alright.”

Will brings Tom’s hand up, feeling along his knuckles and the faint scars adorning them. “What about these? How did you get them?”

Tom snorts, pulling his hand away and flexing it into a fist. “Beat some bastard in secondary for calling me a poof. Busted my hand on his face.”

Will chuckles, grabbing his hand again and kissing his knuckles. Tom melts.

“Scrapper, weren’t you?” Will smiles, amused.

Tom huffs. “Only when I needed to be. What? You’ve never gotten in a fight?”

Will shrugs his shoulder. “Sure. A few times. Mostly with my cousins.”

Tom makes a face. “Really?”

Will nods. “They…didn’t much care for me. And I, them.” He reaches up and points to a small indention in the corner of his left eye. “This is from my oldest cousin. He shot me with an airsoft gun. Nearly took my eye out.”

Tom’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Fuck, seriously?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t add anything else and Tom assumes it’s one of those things he doesn’t want to talk about. He knows that Will and his sister lived with his aunt and her family in Australia for a while when they were younger, but he never mentions anything besides that. From what he’s just said, though, Tom can guess that Will’s time there wasn’t very pleasant.

Deciding to change the subject, Tom shifts and brings his left arm out from under him. He tilts his forearm into view, showing off the long thin scar there.

“This is from where Joe pushed me out of a tree when I was ten,” he says as Will reaches out and runs his fingers down the blemish. His skin pebbles in their wake. “Broke my arm. The bone went straight through the skin, it was bloody awful! Joe wouldn’t stop crying and mum nearly had his head for it.” He sniggers, remembering Joe’s shocked and guilty face. “I was in a cast for months. Bright neon green one. Joe felt so bad he waited on me hand and foot for weeks. I really milked it, too—got him to do all kinds of things! He caught on eventually, though. He was so pissed off he drew a cock on my cast.”

Will bursts out laughing, Tom chuckling along with him at the memory. Will has such a lovely laugh. It was always a surprise to hear it, the man was so reserved. Tom felt a special kind of pride knowing he was the one who could bring something out of Will like that.

Still chuckling, Tom brings his right hand up between them. He wiggles his pinky, which is slightly off-center from the rest of his hand. “He also broke my pinky when I was fifteen. We were wrestling and he landed on my hand wrong. It went fuckin’ sideways! It was so gross.” Will’s nose wrinkles appropriately in response.

Tom sits up, then, throwing the sheets off his legs and bending his knees up to show off the horizontal scars running along them. “And these are from when Joe pushed me down when I was five. Skinned me up so bad I needed stitches.”

“Bloody hell, was he trying to kill you?” Will asks jokingly.

“Nah, just how brothers are, mate.” Tom thinks a moment. “Though, Joe always said he missed being an only child.” That sets them both off again.

They both calm down after a few minutes, Will wiping the tears from his eyes and Tom grinning so hard his face hurts.

“Ellie and I were never that rough with each other,” Will says, amused. “She mostly treated me like a baby doll—dressed me up, put makeup on me, that sort of thing. We had a lot of tea parties.”

Tom grimaces. “Bloody hell, sisters sound like an absolute nightmare.” He pauses. “Are there any pictures?”

“Probably,” Will grumbles playfully.

The older man moves, tilting his head to the side and showing off his long, slender neck—Tom has to resist the urge to bite it. He runs his fingers over a faint burn scar behind his ear.

“This is from when she tried to curl my hair with an iron. She slipped and caught me pretty good. I think I was seven?”

Tom chuckles. “I can’t picture you with curls.”

Will grins, his eyes dancing. “She also burned my hair so bad we had to shave it off.” Tom laughs and shakes his head.

“Sisters. Bloody nightmares.”

Will shows him a few more scars after that—thin little cuts and burns that cover his hands from cooking; a few faded ones from old football injuries in school; scattered, puckered marks on his arm that he promptly glosses over; and a particularly jagged one on the bottom of his foot from where he said he stepped on some broken glass when he was younger. He doesn’t elaborate much on that one, either.

Tom points out more of his own in return—one on his nose from where he tried to pierce it during a drunken dare from his mates (it shattered the cartilage and never healed right); more from fights he had in secondary; and the many scratches and bite marks he collected from the dogs his mum used to breed. He shows Will a particularly embarrassing on his arse.

“Ol’ Millie was a fuckin’ nightmare. She chased me all the bloody time. Mean-tempered bitch, she was. I was helping mum with the litters one day and before I know it, Millie’s grabbed on to my arse and won't let go for nothin'! Mum had to beat her off with a broom, it was mad! I had to go to the hospital to get stitches. You know what’s it’s like to lie there, arse up, in a crowded emergency room for almost an hour while a nurse stitches you up? It’s fuckin’ mortifying, I’ll tell ya that.”

Will laughs again, his eyes bright and clear. His cheeks are flushed in amusement, bringing out the freckles on his nose and cheeks. His whole face is lit up. Tom can’t help but look at him, completely overwhelmed. Forget ‘falling’, Tom’s already fallen for this man. Completely and utterly, head over heels, fallen _hard_. It was an exhilarating revelation that leaves him breathless.

Will reaches across them, startling Tom slightly. His fingers brush against Tom’s stomach, over the dark blotch on his lower right abdomen. “What about his one?”

“Oh, that’s just a birthmark. Had it my whole life.”

Will hums, stroking his hand over the mark, leaving static heat in his wake. Tom feels his stomach jump at the contact. Will’s fingers travel down his skin, lingering on a small cut on his hipbone and he gets a pensive look on his face.

“I read somewhere that scars were just another kind of memory,” Will muses as he pulls away, his hand finding its way to the scar on his head almost unconsciously. “Memories carved on our skin. It’s a bit poetic.”

Tom settles back down on the bed and watches as Will get a faraway look in his eyes. There’s a pain in his eyes that makes Tom’s heart clench.

“Ellie told me once that scars are just proof of where we’ve been and what we’ve survived. They don’t dictate where we’re going. It’s hard to remember that sometimes.”

Tom’s not entirely sure what’s he’s talking about, but he feels the words settle in him. He knows it has to do with that bloody scar—Tom’s not stupid, he knows there a dark history there, no matter how easily Will brushes it off—and Tom wants so badly to know, if only to provide the comfort that Will so desperately needs in this moment. But Tom hasn’t earned that trust just yet, and Will deserves his privacy, even if it seems to cause him such pain.

Tom’s not really sure what to say in response, to take away that look in Will's eyes. He takes a breath and tries anyways.

“Well, I don’t know how scars can dictate where we’re going—“ he stops, thinking about it. “I’m pretty sure it’s us that does. By our actions and choices and stuff, right? What’s anything in the past got to do with the future when it’s us that chooses what happens in the end?

“I like the idea of scars as memories, though,” Tom adds wistfully. He reaches up and touches the edge of the scar on Will’s head once more. Light and gentle. “Someday I hope I can know all of yours.”

Will looks at him then with an expression that’s partially surprised, but mostly so tender it makes heat surge in Tom’s chest. Long fingers reach for Tom’s hand, bringing it down from the scar to rest against Will’s lips. He feels Will’s smile against his skin.

“Someday sounds good,” Will says, hushed. His lips move against Tom’s knuckles and his breath tickles his skin and Tom feels his stomach swoop.

Sunlight is beginning to peak in through the window by then, chasing away the hue of twilight and giving Tom the best view of his lover, bathed in the soft, golden glow of the morning. Soon Will will have to get up and get ready for work, and Tom will have to go to his morning class. The day unfortunately doesn’t stop for intimate conversations and cuddles.

For now, though, Tom decides to give in to his urges and dives down to bite into the juncture Will’s neck. The older man grunts in surprise and calls him cheeky as Tom nips at his skin. He retaliates by aggressively tickling Tom and leaving him a giggling mess, tangled in the sheets. Will flips them and begins playfully nipping and biting Tom anywhere he can and Tom laughs even harder.

When he has to leave the flat later, in a rush to make it to his first class (they lost track of time and now they’re both late and even as they stumble around the flat, Tom definitely doesn’t regret it), he can’t help the giddy elation that settles under his skin. He thinks back on what Will said, about scars and memories. Scars may be a good map for the past, but Tom doesn’t care about that. He wants to see the future—Will’s future. And he wants Will to see his in return. Fuck the past. Tom didn’t know him then. He knows him now, and he wants to know him always. That should be an intimidating thought, yet Tom can only feel excitement and want. And he realizes that he’s ok with that. 

It puts an extra skip in his step as he walks down the street, moving on to thoughts of his A&P homework and what he’ll bring Will for lunch at the bookshop later.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I sense...hidden backstories? Of course I do, I put them there. All in due time, lovelies!
> 
> Sorry this was so short, but I thought it was the perfect length for what I wanted to get across with these two. Especially in such a small, intimate moment. 
> 
> Just a few notes:  
> -Fact: Older siblings suck. I speak from experience! I do love my sister, but she used to beat me up all the time. She never pushed me out of a tree, but she did like to sit on my head and try to drown me in the pool. Sisters are a nightmare, especially ones 10 years older than you and twice your size!  
> -Fact: I once shattered the cartilage of my upper ear when I got it pierced at a store called Claire's. I didn't know that you actually need to get any cartilage pierced at a tattoo parlor, because they have the correct tool for it. I have a scar on my ear now because of that. And the cartilage moves. It's gross.  
> -Fact: I have only ever broken my pinkie toe and the growth plate in my right wrist, which is a tiny little thing. I am wholly inexperienced in that area. I'd probably cry hysterically if I ever broke my arm as bad as Tom's.  
> -Fact: I have so many scars from pets I have had. I've got a wicked one on my thigh from my German Shepherd's dewclaw.  
> -If you want a reference for Will's scar, think Jack from Marrowbone, just attended to by a medical professional. So less hideous.  
> -I'm sticking with Eloise (Ellie) as the name for Will's sister. I've seen her referred to that in this fandom a few times and I like it. 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for rambling - thanks for reading!
> 
> Please leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
